Tag Archive: Hawkey

A huge-budget, huger-scale, and hugely ambitious project that was the culmination of several years’ work.

The sum of many parts. And many characters.

“The Avengers” comic book title first brought several of them together in the 1960s, as a fighting force composed of “Earth’s mightiest heroes”. As does the film of 2012.

If you are a follower of recent cinema, you will no doubt be aware of the commercial and critical successes Marvel has scored with its various flagship characters. All filmed under the Marvel Studios banner – but each movie done in collaboration with separate studios.

Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.).

Thor (Chris Hemsworth).

Captain America (Chris Evans).

The Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo – the third actor to play the Hulk’s human alter-ego, Bruce Banner, in the wake of Eric Bana and Ed Norton).

“The Avengers” movie unites the team in a single adventure, under the direction of Joss Whedon (who co-wrote the tale).

He has done a fine job. Not surprising, really.

The creator of television Sci-Fi classics like “Firefly”, “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer”, “Angel”, and “Dollhouse” is noted for delivering intelligent, witty fantasies, played out by diverse characters. “The Avengers” continues in this fine tradition.

Each of the main characters has a chance to shine, much to do, and an opportunity for humor, in an epic saga which assembles the team for the first time, under the watchful (single) eye of Nick Fury (played by Samuel L. Jackson), head of the global security agency known as SHIELD. (Both Fury and SHIELD have featured in some capacity in all of the heroes’ individual franchise films.)

The Avengers must defeat the global threat posed by Thor’s adoptive brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston, in hissingly evil pantomime form) and the Ch’tari – an alien race brought to Earth by the Tesseract (the blue power cube Odin stole from the Frost Giants, in “Thor”, and which the Red Skull used against “Captain America: The First Avenger”. Wheels, within wheels.)

Cue in-fighting, between the heroes, intrigue, and full-out inter-dimensional warfare, above the streets of Manhattan.
All that, plus an aircraft carrier that turns into a flying fortress.

It’s brilliant fun, and highly entertaining.

And will, of course, spawn a sequel (or two).
There are allusions to this, at the end of the film – by which time The Avengers’ trademark mansion is already being put together by Iron Man / Tony Stark.

But we won’t be seeing the group as a whole until after their next round of solo adventures.

Do yourself a favor, in the meantime.
Grab some popcorn, and see this movie.